Authors: Abigail Collins
Rin’s voice is nothing like it was the first time I met her; for once, I have no problem seeing past her childlike appearance to the bitter woman she really is. But I’m less concerned with what she’s saying than the gun that she’s holding to my father’s head.
“We were kind of hoping,” Flynn says, raising her own weapon in Rin’s direction. “But I guess this works just as well. I would ask how you knew where we’d be, but I’m guessing Rault told you?”
It takes me a moment to realize that she’s referring to my father. I look at him, and even though he’s got a gun pressed against his temple, there isn’t a trace of fear on his face – if anything, he looks smug, with the barest hint of a smile in the corners of his mouth.
“You can blame yourself for this one, Flynn,” Rin says. “You shouldn’t have put so much trust in him, even if you
were
trying to help his daughter.”
“She’s
not
my daughter.”
My father’s words hit me like a slap in the face. It’s not enough that he locked me away after promising me that he had my best interests in his heart, but now I know for certain where his loyalties lie. He spent so many years raising me –
loving
me, unless all of that was a lie, too – and now he’s willing to throw it all away because of some little secret my mother kept from him. It shouldn’t have changed anything. He knew my entire life that I wasn’t his biological child, but that never made a difference; he always gave Fray and I the same measure of love and trust.
Now, I barely even recognize him anymore. He looks the same as my father, but on the inside he’s turned into a cruel, selfish man. And the worst part is that he doesn’t even have a chip in his forehead – he has no excuse for his behavior. He’s the same person he’s always been; he’s just not pretending anymore.
“Just let us through, Rin,” Flynn says after a tense moment, her voice strained. “There’s no sense in you keeping a hostage who’s already
on your side
. Beyond that, you’re outnumbered.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
I follow the direction of Rin’s eyes with my own, and I see our last line of defense curled up on the ground, clutching at his head with both hands tightly like he’s trying to pop it. A shrill, painful wail bursts out of his throat and sends shivers down my spine. I can see every ounce of fight he’s putting into this battle inside of himself, from his tensed muscles to the way his entire body spasms every time he makes a sound.
Even if he somehow manages to keep control of himself, Dori is in no shape to be fighting anyone right now. And with me unwilling to hurt anyone – especially now that my own father is one of my ‘enemies’ – Rin clearly has the upper hand. Flynn is a good soldier, but I have no doubt in my mind that Rin knows exactly how to beat her.
I kneel down next to Dori and put my hand on his back; he flinches and looks up at me like he’s forgotten who I am or why I’m here. His eyes are wide and filled to the brim with confusion, and in that moment I forgive him – for Holden’s death, for the awful things he said to me, for everything. Inside, he’s still the same terrified man he was when he ran out of the simulation room crying. He’s no different than I am, really.
“Just hold on for a little bit, okay?” I whisper, just loud enough that I’m sure he can hear me. “Flynn and I can take care of the situation with Rin. You just need to worry about yourself for now. Think about why you’re here – focus on that. You’ll be okay.”
He nods, pretending as much as I am that my words are true. The real truth is, though, that I have no idea what’s going to happen from this moment on. All I
do
know is that there are too many guns drawn for someone not to get hurt, and Rin isn’t the type of person to give up without a fight.
“Now it’s even, then, wouldn’t you say? Two humans and two machines. Although, I don’t plan on giving up my hostage quite that easily.”
“What are you talking about?” I hear Flynn ask from behind me; I turn my head to see Rin still aiming her gun at my father. “He’s on your side. We’re not stupid enough to believe that you’d actually
hurt
him.”
Flynn keeps her gun trained on Rin, but she doesn’t pull the trigger. I know that she’s a part of an organization that doesn’t support unnecessary violence, but I think that her hesitance is something more than that. She and Rin were allies not long ago, and I think that part of her still feels that way.
“You’ve seen,” Rin begins, gesturing with her free hand in the direction of the war still ringing out behind us, “how I feel about humans. They serve us well, but that’s all they’re good for. You know of my plan, Flynn; you were one of my best soldiers and most trusted friends. You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t agree with the future we talked about.
Think
about it.”
“I know what I said, but I didn’t mean
this!
Ensuring the survival of our race is one thing, but driving another one to
extinction
for it? We were all human once, Rin. Do you remember what it was like – the things you learned, and saw, and felt? You can’t just pretend that part of your life never happened.”
Rin narrows her eyes; I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look this serious. “The humans who are fighting here today are doing so of their own free will. I am not forcing them. If they choose to – ”
“They chose to fight because you
lied
to them!” Flynn interrupts, raising her voice to a near-shout. “You gave them a false cause and false hope. If they had really known what they were fighting for, none of them would have come here.”
“
He
would have.”
My father smiles and nods like he’s proud of himself. My stomach churns painfully, and I feel bile building in my throat, but I can’t force my eyes away from him.
“He…” I begin, clearing my throat to keep my voice from cracking; all eyes are on me – even Dori has managed to lift his gaze from the ground, though it still looks just as hazy as before. “You’re right, Rin. But he’s… he’s a cruel, misguided man who has no right to call himself a human.”
“And
you
do?” I stop, half standing, and Rin’s lips curl into a twisted grin as I realize that I’ve drawn my gun without realizing it. “Need I remind you what you’re made out of? You’re a hybrid, just like us. We just haven’t given a name to things like you yet.”
I’ve got my gun in my hand, but I am still holding it limply at my side. It feels too heavy for me to lift, but I can’t let go of it, either.
“I don’t care what I am, as long as I’m not hurting anyone. There’s more human in me than Digit, and you can’t change that.”
“Or maybe you just need to be…
broken in
a bit. Isn’t that what they do in Division 6?”
Dori lets out a whimper and pounds his fists on the ground. If he were human, I would expect to see blood from the force of his hits, but instead I hear the cracking of the joints in his hands as he mangles them.
“Dori, stop,” I plead quietly, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. He bangs his fists down again, and this time I hear the discernible tearing of his artificial skin as he breaks it open and begins destroying the machinery underneath.
“Is
that
what you want?” Rin asks me, not even flinching as Dori slams his hands on the ground again. “Because that’s your only alternative. You can choose to help me, and keep your free will, or defy me and have it taken away. It’s your choice.”
“And what if I just kill you right now? Then I get to walk away with my free will
and
my freedom.”
Rin smirks; she knows as well as I do that I can’t kill her. “If you think you have what it takes, go ahead. But remember, I have leverage over you. Your father may not love you, but
you
still love him, don’t you?”
She taps her index finger on her gun’s trigger, but doesn’t put any pressure on it. If she really wanted my father dead, she would have killed him already. Either she’s just trying to scare me, or she’s buying time until the fight going on behind us is over and the rest of her soldiers come to her aid.
She’s stalling, but so am I. I have no idea what my next move is going to be, so the best I can do is hope that Flynn has a plan or that Dori somehow manages to regain control of himself.
I raise my gun slowly and point the barrel in her direction. She looks amused, like she knows I’m bluffing, but right now I’m too angry to care.
“Tell me,” I spit, putting as much power in my words as I can; “Tell me why my mother left this place. Tell me why you waited until after she died to look for me. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not going to let you keep me here.”
“Oh, dear,” Rin says scathingly. “If you don’t know the answers to those questions by now, then maybe your brain really isn’t all that special after all.”
“Just
tell
me!”
My hands are sweating so badly I have trouble keeping ahold of my gun. Rin doesn’t look like she’s having any problem keeping
hers
pressed against my father’s temple, however.
“Fine. You want to know why your mother left? For the same reason your father did – because of
you
. Your mother was afraid of what you would become if you remained in Division 4, so she took you away and tried to raise you like a normal child. She lied to everyone about her past, and she should have known better than to expect that her own secrets would never catch up to her. It took us a while to find her, but it was worth the wait. Getting past Division 6 once they realized who you were, however – that took a little more planning. Rault was a
huge
help, though. Without him, I don’t know if we would ever have found out where your mother was hiding.”
My eyes flit back and forth between Rin and my father as I try to process everything she’s just told me. My father told Rin where my mother was – he must have found out about her secrets and been so resentful he was actually willing to
let
her
die
because of them; that also explains how my father came to be in Division 4, and why he was allowed to live the day my mother was murdered.
But what shocks me even more is the last piece of the puzzle; as it falls into place, I feel like my heart is beating so quickly it’s burning a hole in my chest, and for a moment I can’t even breathe. It feels like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the air, and my lungs are filling with poison every time I try to take a breath.
All this time, I’ve been desperately trying to find the person who killed my mother. I don’t know if I was looking for revenge, or just closure, but that last piece of knowledge is one of the only things that kept me going at the compound. All of that training, everything I let Tesla and the other Digits do to me – it was supposed to lead to this moment. But I had always thought that Division 6 had something to do with my mother’s death. I would never have expected that they would have been the ones to try to
stop
it.
And now I’ve finally found the murderer. She’s standing right in front of me, wearing the false body of a young girl, threatening to take my father away from me, too.
“You… This whole time, you’ve been looking for me? Couldn’t you have just… repeated the experiment? Found someone else to put your fake brain in? Why
me
?” My throat is so hoarse, half of my words come out high-pitched and scratchy.
“I
did
try other experiments, but none of them worked as well as yours. Just
look
at you – you’re the only one who’s lived past thirteen.” She looks me up and down, and I feel like my brain is being picked again even though I’m not hooked up to any machines right now. “But that’s not all. Your mother is the only human who has tried to…
opt out
of an experiment. Most mothers don’t care what happens to their baby, as long as they’re alive and healthy. But your mother wanted something else, too – she wanted you to remain
human
. Even after we exchanged your human brain for one of our own design, she maintained the belief that you were still a human baby and should be raised as such. That is why she left this place, and I don’t think I need to tell you what the punishment for such a thing is.”
I shudder, feeling a chill run down my spine. I can’t even begin to imagine how my mother felt – how much
pain
they put her through. Not only did she die, but she did so with the knowledge that her sacrifice was meaningless – that the child she fought to keep human would be brought back into the laboratory and made into a monster. I picture myself in the same situation, and I have to blink away tears.
So I was right all along. Every awful thing that’s happened to the people I care about really
is
my fault.
“I had thought your mother’s death would have been enough to break you, but I must have underestimated your strength of will.” She taps on the trigger of her gun with her index finger, and I watch the motion silently. “Everyone has a breaking point – even
you
. Your weakness is your family. I think I made a mistake in giving you the hope that you still had some left that was worth fighting for.”